Considered the most faithful film adaptation, in some respects, of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus,[6] despite several differences and additions, the film follows a medical student named Victor Frankenstein who creates new life in the form of a monster composed of various corpses' body parts.

[7] Mary Shelley's Frankenstein premiered at the London Film Festival, and was released theatrically on November 4, 1994, by TriStar Pictures.

Victor and his friend Henry Clerval study medicine at the University of Ingolstadt under professor Shmael Augustus Waldman, whose notes contain information on creating life.

He is so obsessed with his work that he drives Elizabeth away when she comes to take him away from Ingolstadt, which is being quarantined amid a cholera epidemic.

The creature shelters for months in a family's barn without their knowledge, learning to read and speak by watching them.

He attempts to earn their trust by anonymously bringing them food, and eventually converses with the elderly, blind patriarch after murdering an abusive debt collector.

Returning to Geneva to marry Elizabeth, Victor finds his younger brother William has been murdered.

The creature exacts his revenge on Victor's wedding night by breaking into Elizabeth's bridal suite and ripping out her heart.

He stitches Elizabeth's head and hands onto Justine's body and reanimates her as a disfigured, mindless shadow of her former self.

Steph Lady wrote the original script to the film that was sold to Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope.

[8][9][10] He chose Branagh to direct the film; Branagh brought in Frank Darabont to do a second draft of the screenplay, insisting on including elements from the novel that had not been present in the script, complete with having as many "explicitly sexual birth images" to go along with elements inspired from Mary Shelley's life in terms of her being "surrounded by images of death".

[1] Original screenwriter Steph Lady, who sold the script to Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope, said "the film was a shocking disappointment; a misshapen monster born of Kenneth Branagh's runaway ego.

The website's consensus reads: "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is ambitious and visually striking, but the overwrought tone and lack of scares make for a tonally inconsistent experience"[15] Roger Ebert gave the film two and a half stars out of four, writing: "I admired the scenes with De Niro [as the Creature] so much I'm tempted to give Mary Shelley's Frankenstein a favorable verdict.

The Creature is on target, but the rest of the film is so frantic, so manic, it doesn't pause to be sure its effects are registered".

He displays neither the technical finesse to handle a big, visually ambitious film nor the insight to develop a stirring new version of this story.

Even the Creature (Robert De Niro), an aesthetically challenged loner with a father who rejected him, would make a dandy guest on any daytime television talk show".

[17] Conversely, James Berardinelli of Reelviews.net gave the film three out of four stars: "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein may not be the definitive version of the 1818 novel, and the director likely attempted more than is practical for a two-hour film, but overambition is preferable to the alternative, especially if it results—as in this case—in something more substantial than Hollywood's typical, fitfully entertaining fluff".

[19] Mary Shelley's Frankenstein collected $11,212,889 during its opening weekend, ranking in second place at the box office below Stargate.